Page Five Ghouls August 19, 2017

Try A Little Tenderness

Byline: Gary Llewellyn

Dateline: August 19th, 2017

Stephanie was giving Oberon a bunch of shit about the drowning. She’s still new at this and still pretty raw about it. I went on a jag around 94-95 where every other day someone was trying to execute me. You hunt monsters, you find monsters. Not so new that she hasn’t managed to amass an army of goblins and a tarrasque. That’s the life, folks. This shit just happens. Learn, as soon as possible, to just ride it. It’s like surfing, except the board is a monster and the ocean is your life.

“Steph. What are you doing?”

“Gary? Where did you come from?” she broke away from berating Oberon.

“I was leading the demon army to Lyon to cut the head off Interpol.”

“I’ll take that piece by piece; what demon army?”

“It was up on the slope before the Cosmic Buzzkill yanked it away. See those trees up there? That’s some of them. What are you doing with Oberon?”

“Oh right. Guys,” she called to some goblins milling about, “Work his midsection.”

Time for reading from Garyology, Vol. 3. What’s better than a vanquished foe? One that owes you a favor.

“Wait. Nobody is working anybody’s midsection,” I stepped between the kobolds and Oberon. “One of you, cut down this half pound sack of shit.”

“What? He tried to kill us,” Stephanie protested.

I gave my look that said, “Trust me. I’m drunk enough to pull it off.”

“King Oberon,” I crouched by his beaten, broken, adorable little body. He looked like a well worn stuffed animal, “I trust my apprentice, Stephanie, has made it clear that she’s more than willing to kill you. Which you can bet your dingleberries she would have done…had I not shown up and delivered unto you a mercy, I assure you, you would not have seen from her. You would have been just like that halfa little guy, over there. But, you get to go home today. Broken and beaten, but alive. And that’s all thanks to your old buddy, Gary. I hope you remember that when I might need a helping hand someday.”

“Fuck you, Gary,” Oberon wheezed.

“Okay, boys. Do with him as you like.”

“Wait, wait, okay.”

“Swear the four words upon your amulet and seal the bond, Oberon.”

“Fine,” he sputtered. “You bastard…I mo b’nun.”

“Speak up, Fae King. The more witnesses the better.”

“I owe you one. Now, let me go, you sadist.”

“Bye, Oberon. Make sure you answer the phone.”

“Dude,” Stephanie said, walking toward me, “I wasn’t going to kill him. Just make him beg for it. But, I was gonna let him go eventually.”

“He didn’t know that.”

“What?” Oberon shrieked, “You demon, you tricked me. If you think I owe you anything…”

“You’re going to break a sacred promise? Consecrated on the field of battle and traded with your life?”

“We made a bond under false pretenses.”

“Then go get a ghost lawyer, you imaginary fuck.”

“One day you will call on me to honor this bond, and I will oblige, but once completed, I will cut you down, Llewellyn. Once and for all.”

“Nope, I plan go to my grave never having asked you for a thing. And being bound, as you are, won’t be able to die, until you fulfill my request that I can’t give you because I’m dead. You’ll just exist until the heat death of the universe. And then I guess float around in dead space for eternity, suffocating, but never dying. Freezing, but never to death. Aging long past decrepitude, but never losing consciousness. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, not even your internal organs which have long since rotted away. You’ll go mad and eat off your own arms, but only as far up as you can reach them with your mouth. And that’s for trying to execute me, you prick,” I socked him in the jaw, “And that’s for siding with Interpol.”

War Pigs

Byline: Stephanie Morgan

Dateline: August 19th, 2017

Dear, SEG-ers, I need to step up my revenge game. Gary’s going to let Oberon sweat it out for awhile. We’ll probably need to call that favor sooner or later. A war is coming, it might have already started. It’s a relativistic war, with no clear sides or lines, where any side can be good or bad depending on your angle, speed and position. In a case like that, look for the spherical bastards. Those who are bastards from every angle. They get a spot on your shit list. Everyone else is potential ally or at the very least a resource. I think that is the difference between Gary and me. I see allies. He sees resources.

The Bigfeet knew a storm was coming. They made a deal with the Illuminati to weather the storm by staying on Mars, returning after the forests retook the Earth. While they were there they would oversee the rebirth of the mighty forests of Mars, by accessing the seed bank in the silo under the pyramid. Who knows if they made it? Mars still looks red to me. Or is that one of those holograms Gary is always going on about?

My kobold spy network has gotten word of large gatherings of Bal Bal in the Philippines, an outbreak of bakhtak in a small village outside of Tehran and a pod of kraken capsizing fishing boats in the North Atlantic. How much of these are relevant? You don’t know till you go there and find out.